The emotional impact of alcohol has been recognized as a key to understanding alcohol use. Our studies will assess the effect of alcohol on both explicit (self-report) and implicit (e.g., facial expression) indicators of emotion (assessing, for example, pleasure, arousal, dominance, anxiety, and depression). Whereas previous research has confounded alcohol with situation variables, we will systematically vary situation and prior emotion while assessing the emotional impact of alcohol. Next, to test the hypothesis that alcohol is used to compensate for undesired emotions due to his environment or associated with his personality, a person's alcohol consumption will be explored as a function of the emotion- inducing quality of environments and of personality traits involving emotional predispositions (e.g., anxiety, depression). A longitudinal study of early personality correlates of later alcohol use will also be carried out. The proposed studies are based on an extensive literature review which resulted in a conceptual framework in which emotions mediate the effect of environments and personality on alcohol use.